Archetypal Christmas
by El loopy
Summary: [Invisible Library] Irene was beginning to wish she had turned down the invite to Silver's Christmas Party. Christmas stories are full of archetypes, like mistletoe for example... Irene x Silver. Oneshot.


**A/N Not my usual pairing but sometimes that's more fun. Inspired by 'The Mortal Word'.**

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Archetypal Christmas

Faerie Stories were not the same as Fairy Tales. They were stories about the Fae, usually a Prince, or a Knight, heart-stoppingly handsome, naturally, and a human girl who wins their heart through beauty or magic or plucky heroine antics. They were not Irene's favourites, not by a long way. She'd had far too much experience of the real thing to enjoy a piece of fiction that misinterpreted the creatures of chaos. She tended to find herself scoffing out loud, half-shouting at the book, or having anxiety inducing flashbacks. She so rarely got time to read that she was loath to make it a stressful experience. Even so, she had often wondered where these books were written. There were plenty in the Library, enough for her to have read a couple that caught her attention, and swear to never again, but she'd not ever been sent to collect one. Did they come from the High Order worlds where the Fae were mere rumours? Just fantasy stories? Or did they come from the more disputed spheres where the author may have reasonably been in contact with them? She hoped that someone at the Library was researching it, purely out of interest. She had previously had no desire to go find out for herself, but, as usual, right now she really wished she knew more.

Right now, because she was stood under the mistletoe with Lord Silver, wishing she'd turned down the invitation to his Christmas Party.

"I didn't realise that the Fae celebrated inconsequential human holidays." She was trying to deflect, to distract him, so she could edge out from under the poisonous berries.

"We celebrate anything that might mean something, Little Mouse."

His eyes were fixated on hers as he stood mere feet away, not yet under the mistletoe with her, dressed up formal for the party and then ruffled so everything was rakishly askance. She wondered how long it took to get that look right. Minutes or hours?

"Anything that might make a good story," she responded a little sharply, and he smiled slowly, in reply, though his eyes remained alert. She could see the tension in his shoulders, coiled…unsure? Afraid?

"When are some of the best stories written but at Christmas?"

Irene gave a concessionary nod.

Clichés. Tropes. Archetypes.

Christmas stories, whilst enjoyable, were often formulaic, just what the Fae liked. Mistletoe, for example…Irene's heart gave a half-unpleasant thud. The bookshelves behind her stopped her retreat and this was suddenly looking suspiciously like a trap, in an inevitable Christmas-story way. Silver's expression was suddenly cast in a new light. The way he looked at her, the slowly approaching paces. Desirous. Anticipation. Uncertainty?

"This isn't your usual…style," she managed to say. Words were becoming very difficult with him looking at her _like that_ and she wasn't sure whether it was polite to point out an archetype shift to a Fae.

Silver took one final step and closed the gap between them, so the mistletoe hung above.

"Your fault, my Librarian. How else am I supposed to get your attention?"

All right. Darkly dangerous. Her type. Definitely her type. He was fitting very neatly into the role of Faerie story anti-hero, saved from the 'wrong path' by love for the heroine. Irene realised her thoughts were babbling and she'd said nothing for a good minute. Unusually, neither had he. There was something missing…her Library brand was not itching, which meant…

"You're not using your glamour." It came out as a surprised whisper, and his lips twitched. Maybe discussing glamour wasn't polite either. His fingers reached up and brushed along her cheek, trailing gently, and she thought stupidly that it wouldn't fit the story for the heroine to be glamoured. As though to confirm her surmise Silver spoke. It was a whisper, heated and secret.

"No. I don't need to."

Then he kissed her.

The kiss was chaos, wild and untamed, but it did not contaminate her, because that would not have fitted his story. For one brief, fleeting instant she let herself kiss him back, not because the story demanded it but because she wanted to. She chose to. It was a long time since she'd last been kissed like this, with heat rushing through her veins, and it would be so easy to just…give…in.

She pushed him away, waited for the anger, the wounded look. He gave her neither.

"That isn't how a kiss under the mistletoe should end," he murmured knowingly, and she felt the conflict of the two stories creep up her skin and pull tight.

"No," she responded, straightening her back, "but that's what you get when you can't make up your mind."

She swept past him out of the room and he didn't stop her, but she felt his eyes on her back and his touch on her lips for a long while after, because that's how these stories go.


End file.
